Tami Simon: Welcome to Insights at The Edge, produced by Sounds True. My name’s Tami Simon, I’m the founder of Sounds True, and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you’d like to learn more, or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit soundstruefoundation.org.
You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Susan Kaiser Greenland. Susan Kaiser Greenland is a mindfulness teacher, and cofounder of the Inner Kids Foundation, which is a not-for-profit organization that has taught secular mindfulness, and community-based programs from 2001–2009. She’s researched the impact of mindfulness in education, child care, and family health at UCLA, and her research has been published in the Journal of Applied School Psychology. She’s the author of the books The Mindful Child and Mindful Games, and with Sounds True she’s put together a new 30-day training program. In less than 10 minutes a day over the course of 30 days it’s a Mindful Parent, Mindful Child program where together you do a game, a practice, explore a teaching about mindfulness. Again, it’s called Mindful Parent, Mindful Child.
Susan Kaiser Greenland is a true pioneer; she was one of the first people to 100 percent dedicate herself to bringing mindfulness into education, into families, and it’s a great honor to have this conversation with Susan Kaiser Greenland:
To begin with, Susan, I’d love for our listeners to get to know you a little bit. And by way of introduction, from 1988 to 2005, you were a corporate lawyer before you decided to leave that career and dedicate yourself to teaching mindfulness to kids. What caused that transition, career transition?
Susan Kaiser Greenland: Oh wow. We’re starting off with a bang. You know, it’s not just one thing. I think if we had had this conversation 10 years ago, I probably could’ve given you a very linear answer, but now it’s—it was a number of things coming together. I think the most important take away for me of the practice of law is, I liked it. I really enjoyed it, I enjoyed the puzzle pieces, putting that kind of stuff together. I often said that corporate transactional lawyers understand karma a lot better than most contemplatives. And I really enjoyed it. It just got to be, I couldn’t do both well.
It’s funny because I’m just now watching some videos that Mingyur Rinpoche, who’s a teacher of mine, did. And in them he talks about how when you start something new you have to give something up. And that’s kind of what happened with the law for me. It got to the point that I really couldn’t do both well anymore, but I enjoyed it.
TS: And here focusing on teaching mindfulness skills to kids, do you ever feel like the sharp mental part of you is not being challenged in the same way? I mean what happened—here you are, I don’t know, singing songs and dancing in a circle or whatever.
SKG: [Laughs] No, the opposite. I think my law—and I was a lawyer for 20 years. My 20 years of practicing law, I don’t think I could’ve done what I did, and the way I did it, without having had that practice behind me.
Now, there’s been an awful lot of unlearning I needed to do because of that. At the beginning I had more of an edge to me, and I was more—as much as I would talk about not being goal-oriented and all of that, I was more goal-oriented and directed than maybe the practice really supported. But that capacity to think on your feet, to be analytical, and at the same time to be listening and hearing what’s happening, which a good negotiator has to have, is necessary when you’re working with kids, and families, and parents, ’cause you have to really be right there with them then.
TS: OK. In an interview with you, Susan, here’s a quote that I pulled out: “Nothing is more important than teaching mindfulness to kids.” You said that, and I thought, that’s a very, very strong statement, nothing is more important than teaching mindfulness to kids. And even if it’s one of the most important things, it’s still a strong statement. So tell me why you believe that.
SKG: I think that we have—first of all, I probably would say it a little bit differently now, but I still am happy to stand by that in that our world is gonna change based on our children. And we’re not leaving them the easiest world to navigate. And so unless if we really teach them—you know, I gotta tell you Tami, I do believe this. I mean, I still believe it, I don’t know when that interview was from, because we need to teach kids, and their parents, and the entire system around them. So if we teach kids, you think of the ripple effect, you’re actually teaching everybody.
So we need to teach this entire system two really important things that contemplative practices in a secular way teach. And the first is a general understanding of when people are worked up, and what happens when people are worked up, or are emotionally overwrought, or upset. And mindfulness will help with that. Mindfulness allows you to really be present with yourself and the other person, and notice what’s happening within and without.
And then when we acknowledge, or are able to clearly see that somebody is worked up, or we’re worked up, then we can respond appropriately with mindfulness-based self-regulation strategies. And those strategies for ourself is when we notice we’re all worked up, we use some technique that allows us to move our attention away from thinking about what we’re worked up about into a present-moment sensory experience, and that settles our nervous system.
But then we also understand that if the person we’re talking to is worked up, they don’t have that bandwidth, they don’t have the capacity to be able to really listen, or to take in new ideas. And so then we can use our, what we learned through mindfulness, to be present with them, or just walk away until things settle down. And then always we can come back and solve a problem.
So I think that first piece of the mindfulness-based conflict resolution and self-regulation skills, is key for the challenging world our kids and our families are in now, and moving into probably in the future. And then I think there’s a second piece which is equally as important, which is there are a number of themes, universal themes, threaded through a more contemplative world view. And those themes allow you to think and navigate the world just a little bit differently, and with more of a kind of built-in, integrated kindness and compassion. So it’s harder to teach this stuff as people get older, but for the little kids, they’re like sponges and they’re just open to it.
TS: Now when you were pointing to an underlying value system, I could guess what that is, but what is it that you were pointing to when you mentioned a set of values that come along?
SKG: Yes. My work—even though I’ve studied Buddhist practice for a very, very long time, it’s important to me that the work that I bring out to kids and families is secular. It’s the way that it will be the most accessible, and it feels to me like it’s the appropriate thing to do especially since so much of this does end up in public settings, whether it’s a school, or a Girl Scout troop, or something like that. So I think more in terms of general themes, and themes like learning to let go, but not give up. Themes like, just dropping your baggage and being in the moment right now. Themes like, how we’re all connected. Those types of universal themes that when we start teaching those themes to kids, and parents, and the entire system around them, they just start to view life a little bit differently. They navigate it differently.
TS: Now just to zero in a little bit on the work that you do, I’m imagining that children are in different developmental stages depending what age they are, and that you have to teach and introduce these themes, and the mindful games that you work with differently depending on what age, what developmental stage. How do you see that? Do you break groups down into different stages?
SKG: Yes, you kind of have to, because there’s a couple of basic rules of just child development that factor in having to do with what a child has developed the capacity for at a certain age. We kind of divide, and it’s a little complicated—it’s a lot to go into in a phone call, but it’s actually very simple. We divide the practices into anchor practices, where you focus on one thing and nothing else. And anyone at any age has the capacity to do that, but where we have to be mindful of how the developmental stage that the people we’re working with are in, is when we’re talking about a more open, receptive awareness, which is something that comes on a little bit later for kids. And frankly for adults it’s often very useful to start with an anchor practice, focusing on one thing and nothing else.
And then also in kindness practices, what we call “friendly wishes practices,” again we have to be very careful developmentally about asking kids to think of a kind wish toward somebody. Because we have to be very mindful that we don’t want to be encouraging kids to be wishing well people who are harming them, because again developmentally for very young children it’s tough to make that distinction between wishing somebody well and liking somebody. So that’s another place that we have to be cautious developmentally.
TS: OK. Let’s try to get into some specifics. When you talk about anchor practices, can you give me some examples, and maybe examples at different developmental stages?
SKG: Sure, [an] anchor practice, or focused awareness, or shamatha, it’s focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else. So a common one is focusing on the feeling of the movement of breath in your body at a particular spot. Possibly to your nose, or at your chest where your heart is, or at your tummy. Another common one is listening to the bell until it stops, just focusing on that one thing and nothing else. Or looking at something. So when we look at a glitter ball, or a snow ball after it’s been shaken and while it’s settling, watching and really focusing, and relaxing while we’re doing it, on the settling of the glitter. Those things are examples of focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else. And that applies—oh, and also pictures in our head. So if you’re picturing a place where you feel happy, or if you’re picturing a safe place, or if you’re picturing your puppy and you want to send your puppy a friendly wish, that’s again focusing on one thing, and nothing else.
TS: OK. And it sounds like those anchor practices would basically be the same no matter what age you are?
SKG: Yep. Yep.
TS: OK. And then when it comes to this friendly wishes, you gave that interesting caveat, which is to be careful with young kids. How do you introduce the friendly wishes practice?
SKG: Well friendly wishes are, they are derivative of lovingkindness practices. But we switched around the name to “friendly wishes” because the little kids didn’t really understand what that meant, but they know what their friends are, and they know that they have friends, and they know about sending them wishes. So we really just talk about imagining something for somebody else, or for ourselves because it’s a progression, we start with ourselves and then we move to other groups of people. So we just imagine something that we would like the other person to have. It’s a mental act of generosity. It’s a mental act of wishing somebody well.
But with the older kids, and teens, and adults, we sometimes bring in wishing people who bug us well, wishing people who get on our nerves well. And that’s, to be honest with you, a very, very useful practice with siblings. Because the siblings basically love each other, they’re in a family unit, generally they love each other, but they can really get on one another’s nerves. And so when people have—when parents come with sibling rivalry issues, or sibling conflict issues, just starting to think of what it is that we would really wish for that other person, for our sibling. How would we wish them well? That’s how we introduce it.
Now if you’re talking about—when I’m talking about working with that with parents, you know the parents, you know the whole family system. But if you’re leading a group—so that would be more in a Girl Scout group, or in a school, in a classroom, or something like that, or an after-school activity, at that point you have to be careful with general directions like that because you don’t really know who in the room might have people in their life who are very close to them, but who are hurting them in some way. So it can be ill-advised to be encouraging groups like that to be wishing well people who might be hurting them.
TS: Now in terms of a sibling rivalry situation, that was something that was definitely true in my family growing up, intense rivalry among the various siblings, and we never had a practice like this. How does it go when you introduce that into a very competitive environment?
SKG: Well it always depends on the age of the kids, but usually there’s gonna be a fair amount of eye rolling. So you have to just have some patience and have a sense of humor. The goal with all of this, whether it’s with a couple of siblings, or whether it’s with a larger group, or with an individual child, is to find some way to get somebody to buy in. So that’s the first job when you have the child in front of you, or if you have the brother and sister in front of you, or the two siblings, is to try to find a way in where somebody’s gonna buy into something. And then from there you just kind of gently open up and start asking questions about what is it that you would really like for your brother or sister, or what is it that you think might make them feel great?
Another piece that gets factored in, because these things are not done in isolation, another thing that gets factored in very early on regardless of the age that we’re working with, but as the kids get older they understand it better, and certainly the parents and the adults do, is this idea of a ripple effect. So the idea of a ripple effect is that if we practice our practice, we’ll benefit those around us. And that’s a tough thing to get people to understand. And it’s a particularly tough thing with parents and other kinds of caregivers, because they often are feeling that it’s very selfish for them to just sit on their own and practice. So they think, “I would be better off if I was actually working and earning some money, or if I was actually spending time with the kids at the park. I mean, how is this helpful to my family, that I’m sitting in a room with the door shut in the quiet?”
But when we start explaining—and this works with the older kids as well, and older being even by third/fourth grade they can start understanding the ripple effect. That when we start explaining to them that if we can just take the time to relax, and get to know our own minds better, if that makes us a little bit less neurotic, if that makes us a little bit less reactive, that that will have a benefit. That will be helpful to everybody around us.
So in the same way, when you’re talking to kids you can try to find your way in by talking about this ripple effect. What would your brother or sister be like if he or she was really happy? Would that change how he or she behaved around you? Do you think things would feel differently around the house? Well what do you think might make your brother or sister really happy? And then, “Well, he really wants to get onto this rowing team, this crew team.” “Great, well let’s just sit for a second, let’s feel our feet against the ground, our feet against the chair, let’s relax our shoulders, let’s relax and see if you can just picture your brother in a boat, with an oar, rowing, and being on that team.” And that’s how we do it.
TS: Now Susan, I’ve heard you say that the single most important thing for a parent is for them to have their own mindfulness mediation practice, that that’s more important than anything in terms of affecting the whole family environment. And that makes sense to me. But then I also think of those parents who are like, you know “OK I’m gonna send my kid off to mindfulness camp, can you fix them for me please?” Like, “Isn’t that what you do, Susan?” What do you do in those situations?
SKG: Well it’s better than—if we only have the children, it’s better than nothing. And the children often will teach their parents without really intending to. There’s so many great stories about even very young children, starting to sing one of the many breathing songs in the backseat of the car while a parent is stressed out driving, or ringing a bell in the middle of an argument that their parents are having, saying, “Why don’t you stop and feel your breathing?” So the kids do tend to bring it home, so it’s better—you know, a mindfulness class for kids, their mindfulness in their schools, or mindfulness with their therapists. It’s a good thing. That in and of itself is a good thing.
But the ultimate goal is to get the entire system, the entire system practicing just a little bit of mindfulness. And there’s so many different doors, and it doesn’t need to just be sitting cross legged on a cushion. It can be moving, or it can be through some of these themes that we were talking about. Just a better understanding of some of the different themes about really being here right now in this moment. Or really learning to relax and let go, and be more comfortable with the mind of not knowing. Those kinds of themes some parents are more open to, and then that’s the doorway in for them. But ultimately, for the parents, if they are really interested in their children practicing mindfulness, the best place to start is with their own practice.
TS: Do you think it’s an overstatement to say that if parents were practicing in a deep way, they wouldn’t even need to read your books, or take special classes, that they would intuitively know how to create an environment that was conducive to the kind of kindness and pausing—
SKG: No, I think that’s right.
TS: You do?
SKG: I think that’s right. Yes. I absolutely think that’s right.
TS: Alright then.
SKG: [Laughs] I think what’s helpful though is these games and activities give them specific ideas of things to do. And they also—I mean, what I like to do when I’m working with parents, and when I’m working with other adults who want to practice with kids, is the games that we’ve created, those are just a jumping-off point. But hopefully by the end of the workshop, the parents are picking up their own, and they’re starting to make up their own. So it’s helpful to have a general understanding of how these things are structured, play, have some fun first, then practice. Do a little bit of practice based on whatever theme it is that you’re trying to get across. And then share, share about the experience, and then apply it. How would this help you in real life?
And that’s the sequence for making these mindful games up. So it’s helpful for people who are just accustomed to their own disciplined practice to have this idea of how to make it playful for kids.
TS: Can you give me some examples of some games, and maybe take me thorough those four steps you just mentioned?
SKG: Sure. Well, the four steps don’t always happen right inside of a game, because the practice, share, apply always happen within the game itself, but the play part doesn’t always happen that way. But the reason I think it’s important to have a little bit of something fun before, even if it’s a stretch or tossing a ball around or something, is because then when a child comes to actually sit, if it is an introspective practice, they’re coming to that practice with a little bit of a smile on their face. And what you often see with absolutely everybody, whether they’re four or whether they’re forty, is people sit down on a cushion, or in a chair, and they’re a little bit grim. And the come to it as such serious work. And it’s a completely different experience if you come to your practice with more of a relaxed point of view, and with more of a playful point of view. So that’s the play part.
As far as the practice, the practice could be anything from a brief moment of mindfulness—it could be listening to a bell and while you’re listening, moving your arm down with the sound of the bell so that you’re moving in sync with the bell. Or it could be moving your leg in sync with the bell. Or it could be a more analytical practice like where you look at a picture of a drawing that looks like either a duck or a rabbit and you say, “Is it a duck or is it a rabbit? Are both of these people—if one person thinks it’s a duck and the other one thinks it’s a rabbit, who’s right and who’s wrong?” So that’s another type of a more analytical practice.
Or it could be a body scan where you sit and you move your attention from various parts of your body. Either you move it down from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes, or you pretend that there’s a little butterfly and the butterfly is stopping on your knee and so you feel the butterfly on your knee. And then moves to your elbow, one elbow, you feel it on that elbow. And then it moves to the other elbow, you feel it on that elbow. So those are the types of practices, and each one has a very specific purpose. It’s trying to train something specific. One of these themes of focusing, quieting, seeing, reframing, caring, or connecting.
Then after that you share. And I think there, especially with kids, adults do have an ethical obligation to not just leave the kids sitting there with whatever they’re feeling after they’re practicing, to have at least a very brief moment of checking in, or maybe longer. Just, “What was that like for you?” And sometimes things come up in that conversation that require some more unpacking. And sometimes if you’re in a group, it’s not the right place to unpack. So then it’s on the adult to then circle back and have some time alone with the child to talk a little more about whatever came up.
And then apply, and apply is really important with kids. Which is, how is this gonna help you in real life? Can you imagine how, that whatever you learned from the butterfly, moving your attention from your knee to your elbow to your eyelid, back to your toe, how could that help you in real life? And the answers are things like, “Well, it helps me move my attention from my schoolwork to the telephone ringing.” Or “It helps me move my attention—” you know, that kind of thing.
TS: Now you mentioned, Susan, that you introduce these practices in a lot of different kinds of contexts—maybe with just one kid, maybe within a family context, but also in schools. And I’m curious to know, do you feel that you have to be undercover, in a sense, to bring the Buddhist roots of the practices you’re teaching, and not talk about that, but use other language? I mean, at one point I was interviewing Goldie Hawn—this was about a year and a half ago, and she was talking about her work at the MindUP institute. And she just said, “Look Tami, we teach brain basics, that’s what we’re teaching. We don’t use words like meditation, we talk about the brain. That’s how we get into schools.” And I’m wondering your view on that?
SKG: Well I think Goldie’s right. I’ve known Goldie for a long time, and I think she’s amazing and what she’s been able to build with MindUP is terrific. And she’s right about that. We have to be more and more careful all of the time about the language that we use. I would go a little further than brain basics though. I think the self-regulatory piece is key, but I think the self-regulatory piece is just the beginning. I think the self-regulatory piece, and also a general understanding of the brain, a general understanding of how our nervous system works, and just a better understanding of that when our nervous system is heightened, we simply don’t have the bandwidth to be able to listen, to learn, to be open or receptive to new ideas.
And our bandwidth also closes when we’re hungry, when we’re tired, when we’re stressed out. So the kids, and the adults supporting them, need to know that. And it is sometimes surprising to me how many of the adults who are supporting the children in the schools don’t have that general sense of what Goldie might call “brain basics.” So I think that’s really important. But I think it’s just the beginning, and I think where it gets interesting is when you start opening up into these different ways of living, and these different ways of viewing the world, something that’s not as metric driven, or as linear.
And these kids from—look at the college admissions scandal right now. I mean, its mind-boggling what these parents are doing with, I hesitate to say, with the best of intentions. They are thinking that what they’re doing is of service to their kids. But this starts in preschool, this starts with crazy competition just to get into preschool. Kids are like sponges, they pick this stuff up, so one of the wonderful openings that this type of learning provides is exposing people to a less metric-driven, less Western, less “go, go, do, do,” less “bigger is better” kind of mindset. And so that’s for me where it really gets fun and where it gets interesting. But I think that those brain basics that Goldie’s talking about, which I’d also think of as self-regulation strategies, are a first. You’ve gotta have that mindfulness self-regulation first. Because without it, you just don’t have the bandwidth to be able to be open to these other ways of looking at things.
TS: Now let’s talk a little bit about teaching these self-regulation strategies. When I asked you the question, really is it true that nothing’s more important than teaching mindfulness to kids? And you said it very well may be true. You talked about how important it is when you find yourself—I think the word you used was overwrought, and worked up. And I thought, “Yes that’s a good term, overwrought, worked up,” that you have some way to self-regulate. And I think all of us know how important that is. How do you introduce that to kids? What kind of games, especially, I love the ideas of these games. It seems to me that, at least from my interactions with children—I don’t have children of my own, but with my nephews and nieces, games are always a great way to go.
SKG: Yes. Well, the glitter ball or the snow globe is a great way to introduce this because you can—and a bobble-head doll is also a really good way to introduce it. Because both of them you can shake it up. So with a bobble-head doll for example, you shake up the bobble head and then you have the—I’ve got an Obama bobble head that I take around with me. And then you ask the kids, “Have you ever felt like this, where your head was just going back and forth, back and forth?” And then you have a conversation about it, you ask them what that was like, how it felt for them, could you see clearly then? Could you make decisions? Could you really listen and settle down? And the answer is no.
And the snow globe does the same thing, where you shake the snow globe, or the glitter ball, and you talk about how that snow in the globe is like the stress, or the strain, or a lot of thoughts in our busy minds. And the stress or strain in our lives, or a lot of thoughts in our busy minds. But if we just let it settle, then the water becomes clear and we can see clearly.
And there’s a couple other beats to that exercise that are really, really important with kids. One is, did the snow in the globe away? And the answer is no, of course the snow is still in the bottom of the globe. So mindfulness isn’t gonna necessarily solve all of our problems, it’s not gonna take our stress away. We don’t really want it to take our emotions away, or our thoughts away. It just gives us an opportunity to let everything settle so that we can see clearly, and then make choices that bring everybody’s best interests in mind.
And the second really important teaching point of that snow globe is when you’re shaking it, you can talk about how beautiful the snow is. Because a lot of the mindfulness—especially for people who haven’t had much exposure to this, haven’t had much training to this, but their boss thinks it’s a good idea for them to do it so they’re teaching it anyway in their classroom. There’s often the misunderstanding that mindfulness is about getting rid of emotions, getting rid of thoughts, putting a big wet blanket on it all. And in that you can kind of demonize emotions. But when you see the glitter, and you see it kind of sparkle, say, “Isn’t that beautiful. Well, our thoughts and emotions are like that too. But sometimes even beautiful thoughts, we need to have them settle so that we can see clearly and make some choices.”
TS: And what if a kid says to you, you know, “This really difficult emotion I’m feeling”—maybe it’s sadness or something that is just painful, a sense of loss or something—”I do want it to go away, I don’t want to ever feel this terrible again, to be honest with you. I don’t want it to lay there latent in the snow globe.”
SKG: Yes. We listen to that. We talk about how it all changes, how everything changes. See, that’s how when you weave in these universal things that we’re talking about, a big one is how everything changes. If you’ve taught those themes before somebody is upset, or before somebody is facing some kind of a decision or a choice point that is difficult to them, if you’ve already taught these themes, then you can just weave them in. And again, that’s where you really can see the difference between a facilitator who has been well-trained, and one who really has just focused on the self-regulatory aspects of the work.
So that’s when we talk about, “Everything changes, we’ve talked about that, things come and things go. And that will change and transform too.” If I was working with that child on his or her own, and if he or she were not, like, somewhere around—it kind of depends on the child, but maybe as young as second grade. Then we’d spend some time relaxing. We’d spend some time just being with the emotion, and relaxing our body. Trying not to think about the emotion, but just see if we can move our attention into our body and relax. And sometimes that can be done through a guided, really brief, brief body scan. Just you chunk it, so just, feel the top of your head, feel your face, feel your shoulders, feel your upper arms, lower arms. And start to help people understand that when we’re in the grip of strong emotion like that, we don’t need the emotion to go away, but if we just relax, if we can move our attention away from what’s happening in our mind to our bodies and relax, then that emotion has a way of transforming.
TS: And then what skills do children need to develop, and how do they develop them so that they can be with other people, as you mentioned, when other people are overwrought and worked up?
SKG: Wow, that is a really good question. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question before. I think it’s all part of the same thing. When kids start to feel that—which is another justification for why parents have to have, why it’s beneficial for parents to have their own practice—when kids start to feel this from the inside out, then their interaction with other kids who are feeling hurt is just remarkable, Tami. I mean, it’s just beautiful to see it happen. And it’s also how they’ll respond to their mom when their mom is upset, or their dad when their dad is upset.
I don’t really think it’s important to teach specific skills for that purpose, although I can imagine that there are programs that do it, and certainly understanding intellectually these life skills of focusing, quieting, seeing, reframing, and then caring and connecting would fall into that category. But I think it just emerges naturally when the kids start to feel it themselves. And when the other things that we’re teaching in this program start to come online—just more of a listening, more of a capacity to listen, more of a capacity to wait, a little bit of patience.
TS: You know Susan, you’re really a pioneer in this field, that’s how I think of you. You were one of the first people to throw yourself in and really dedicate yourself to this type of education in children. Have you found, kind of each step of the way, which way to go through experimentation? Or has there been research that’s guided you? What have been the most significant guideposts?
SKG: Well, the most significant—well first of all, thank you Tami. I really appreciate you saying that. And coming from you it really means something. So thank you, and I want to stop and express that gratitude. It’s come from all of the above. But the most significant influence has, and continues to be my meditation practice. And I’ve been lucky. I’ve been able, not all the time, but ultimately I’ve been able to be around teachers who actually do navigate the world a little bit differently. So when you actually see people living this way, and responding in a way that’s consistent with these universal themes, it gives you hope and inspiration.
But I was also very lucky; being early had its downsides. And I think that again when you said the lawyer piece, it’s a good thing I was a lawyer when I was coming in this early. The little bit of an edge that I had that may not have been entirely consistent with the practice, I think helped me kind of get into some places that I may not have been into if I hadn’t had that little bit of an edge. And I’m delighted that with years, and a few gray hairs, and a lot of practice, that’s calmed down a bit.
But, I was lucky being one of the early people because I was really brought into early research studies at UCLA where I was teamed with really top-notch classroom teachers in preschool, and with a preschool director named Gay Harwin who was the best. So although I did not go to school in education, I basically did student teaching with these teachers, and then others in other schools for about 10 years where the classroom teacher was always there. So I was able to really watch and learn from them as far as classroom management. And in the same way that I believe that every great lawyer is doing an awful lot that’s basically mindfulness practice, I think the exact same thing is true with classroom teachers. And when I meet a resistant classroom teacher, and I’m asked to come in and observe and kind of give notes, I just sit back and watch. And if they’re effective, then I at the end of the observation, rather than my trying to teach them some mindfulness, I point out to them what they’re already doing.
So I was lucky; I was with some great classroom teachers early on. I found some great meditation teachers who were patient with me because I am not the easiest student, all that lawyering thing gets in the way a lot. And I also was lucky to spend some time with some really top researchers. Sue Smalley was a great researcher and I worked with her for a couple years on these UCLA projects. So all of those things kind of came together and I don’t know that they would’ve if I hadn’t been early to this.
TS: Are there any definitive research studies about mindfulness with children that are markers on the path here? Like, “This study really showed us XYZ.”
SKG: My guess, as you know, there’s more and more mindfulness backlash from the research community. So there was this big article that came out, “Beware the Mindful Hype,” or “Beware the Mindfulness Hype,” and then there are others who are saying beware the anti-mindfulness hype. So I’m particularly careful when I talk about studies. But I do think that the studies that are showing self-regulation and the development of executive functioning are the ones that are going to take hold and be the most persuasive in the school system. Although you know, Richie’s lab did some interesting studies about kindness with kids too, and little kids giving each other stickers after having seen some videos or something about being kind to one another. So there’s interesting stuff going on in the area of view as well.
TS: How do you go about teaching kids self-compassion? Are there particular exercises or games that help with that?
SKG: Well the first thing that we really try to teach kids about self-compassion are just some really simple physical self-soothing moves, like holding your hand over your heart, giving yourself a hug, swaying side to side, and just really feeling the movement, getting up and walking. And shaking, shaking is huge. Where you put magic glue on the bottoms of your feet, stomp stomp, you wiggle your knees because you don’t want your knees to lock so you want them soft, so you wiggle your knees. And then you just shake your body. And then there’s a prompt to stop, and then you shake it all out again, and start over again. And shaking is an incredible strategy that is an exercise of self-compassion because it helps you feel better.
And then, when we—so those are all kind of mindfulness first exercises again to help us calm and quiet so that we can see the picture more clearly. And then we talk to kids about all of these universal themes again. About things like patience, about generosity, being generous with yourself, about relaxing, about how everything changes. And then also these great games about not knowing, and really never knowing all the causes and conditions that led up to this moment. Like, why you didn’t get invited to that birthday party, and not taking it personally. So really a good dollop of helping kids become comfortable with not knowing, and how everything is connected. It’s a statistical impossibility for us to actually know everything we need to know about what led up to any particular choice point or decision.
So those are the things that help with helping kids be nicer to themselves. And then of course there’s also the friendly wishes practices where we imagine ourselves feeling good.
TS: Now, not knowing can sound like an abstract, Zen idea. How do you introduce that to kids?
SKG: Through these kind of fun visuals. So we’ve got one which is a duck or a rabbit. There’s the game that you might be familiar with about the elephant with the six blind people who are trying to touch the elephant and they come up with, nobody has the right decision because they can’t see the whole picture. There’s another visual of a duck—I’m sorry, two birds looking at the number, it’s either a six or a nine depending on their perspective. So those kind of things are a good jumping-off point to how we can be very, very sure about something, but actually our certainty is based on this limited view we have. You can also have some of these games where kids are blindfolded and trying just to feel part of a big stuffed animal instead of just conceptualize it with the picture of the elephant and the blind people.
So the starting point is just how we only know what we see, and we’re limited in what we see. And then depending on how old the kids are we can take that out further, and further, and further to just imagining—like, think of all the causes and conditions that led up to this moment that has you on the phone talking to me, and me on the phone talking to you, and a person listening to us. It’s an infinite number of causes and conditions that had to lead up to this very moment.
TS: Yes. Now Susan, when you reflect on the work you’ve done over the last 15 or so years, what has both surprised you in a positive sense, like, “God, I never thought I’d see something like that, it just so stunned me,” but also what has disappointed you?
SKG: I think on the surprise, I am surprised, and pleasantly so, at how this has completely taken off in a relatively short period of time. I think it’s amazing how—when we first went into schools here, we had to go in with a gardening program. [Laughs] And we would go in, and we would plant some seeds, and practice a little breathing while we were at it. We could never even say the word mindfulness. So the way that it has exploded has been a surprise, and really just a wonderful one, and I’m very, very happy with it. And also on a smaller, more intimate kind of note, I’m just surprised at watching how little it takes for an entire family relationship to transform. How just if one person in that system changes, and just one seemingly small insight, the whole system can just transform in a beautiful way. So those are the wonderful surprises.
And the disappointment . . . you know, under this theory that you and I have been talking about, how you never really know, and have to develop a comfort level with letting go and not knowing—which is certainly, I feel that’s part of just getting older. It’s like the onion, each layer of letting go, that’s the exercise and the growth. So I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run, but the disappointment is there’s really a deep well and reservoir of practice and experience from which this all comes. And that deep well and reservoir leads people into a direction that often does not have them—I mean I think, Tami, you really are one of the exceptions in that you have that deep practice and you also had the wherewithal to be able to do both with building this wonderful company that you’ve built that’s of such great service. But I think that many people just get a taste of it and then they take off and miss some of the most important pieces, in my mind, of this practice, which goes to this aspect of view.
And I see it over, and over, and over again, and I recognize that everybody needs to come in where they come in. And I recognize that it is our role to meet people where they are. And you know what, I’m hopeful that it will all work out in the end, but I do sometimes worry that there is a little bit of a backlash now, and that the backlash will grow greater than it is now and really kind of send things off in a direction that I don’t feel is really consistent with what really is transformative about this practice.
TS: Just to make sure that our listeners are tracking with you, and that I’m tracking with you, when you say this deep aspect of view that comes from, you could say, deep internal work and meditative retreats, what is that that you’re pointing to that you’re afraid is getting lost?
SKG: I think it’s always been tricky to be able to balance an idea of non-striving with an idea of getting something done. And to be able to do that, I can’t really speak for anybody else, but I wasn’t able to figure that out or to be able to do it until I had had—until relatively recently. I mean I’ve been doing this for, I don’t even know anymore, but it’s certainly over fifteen years, and it’s really only been in the last five years that I’ve been able to kind of get a felt sense of that. And so what happens is that these good ideas fueled by well intentions get on these linear trains headed to, literally headed to nowhere. Although everybody thinks it’s headed to somewhere, some money, or some success, or some fame, or some fortune. And that just leads to the suffering that this practice is able to transform and ease. Does that make sense?
TS: It makes a lot of sense. I mean, well one thing I think you’re pointing to, and you write about it in your book The Mindful Child, is clarifying our motivation. And what really is our motivation, whether it’s about having mindfulness in our family, what’s our motivation for having a company that’s putting out these kinds of tools in the world. And basically is it about—what I hear you saying, is it about me, or is it about all of us? And when it’s about all of us, when it’s a deep, beneficial motivation, that changes everything.
SKG: Yes. You’re right. You’re right, and that’s another beautiful example of how, in a secular context, this can be put in language that people can use in their everyday life. You know, I was talking to a girlfriend just the other day who was having a little problem with another friend. And the question really was, is she doing this for you, or is she doing it for herself? And when you start seeing that clearly, it makes all the difference.
TS: OK Susan, as we come to an end, what’s your big dream, if you will? The big dream for all of us related to teaching mindfulness to kids—what’s the long game, if you will, of what you’re up to?
SKG: You know I’m not gonna give you a great answer—I’ve kind of given up on the long game. I mean—
TS: Uh huh. Which in and of itself I think is interesting.
SKG: I think part of the freedom that I have been feeling in the last handful of years is just recognizing that—we’ve been talking about not knowing, right? There is no possible way I could predict, and if I try to steer a course then I’m—with my small mind I’m likely to steer it in not exactly the right direction. So again, for me my big dream is just to be able to continue to let these layers of relaxing and letting go, go, without falling into this kind of “Oh why bother?” kind of mindset. And then be relaxed enough, and balanced enough that when it’s clear that there’s something to do that will be of use, to do it.
And then, again, to let the music play. I mean, Trungpa that great line, let the phenomena play out. Then you act, and then you act with the best wishes at heart, hoping for the ripple effect. And you do the best you can based on the knowledge you have, and then you let go. And you let it go, and you relax, and you let the music play, and then again you go through that. And that’s kind of what I see as the drill. And I’ve got to tell you, it may sound a little boring and dull, but—it doesn’t sound exciting, like I want every child to be practicing mindfulness in their school, but I’ve got to tell you, living this way has been just so exceptional, and engaging, and it really does lead to happiness.
TS: Yippee! I’m glad you didn’t give me the world domination answer, but instead the letting go into this moment and doing what’s needed answer. It’s a kind of feminine response, too; that’s my own sense of not needing a world-domination plan. So thank you, Susan.
SKG: Well thank you. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate all that you’re putting out there in the world.
TS: Now I want to end on one final note of a skill that you introduce to families, which is the skill—or the universal theme, to use the language you’ve used in this conversation—of gratitude. And you have some interesting games and practices that help parents and kids, teachers and kids, experience gratitude. Let’s end on that note.
SKG: Well, you want to talk about the one most transformational practice is, in my mind what I’ve seen, is gratitude, is really trying to turn difficulties on their ear by looking at what is good too. Which also helps with this idea of view, where we just broaden our perspective.
But the key to these gratitude games—like Still I Feel Lucky is one of the ones I like. And it’s fun to play it with a ball, and if you don’t have a ball you can mime having a ball, so it’s an imaginary ball, which also helps with eye contact and self-regulation. And so you throw this imaginary ball around to each other, or else you roll one on the floor, you toss a beach ball, and you whine about something. Like right now—I was telling you I was on this fast—”Right now my stomach is growling, but still I feel lucky.” And then you say something that you feel lucky about. “But still I feel lucky because I’m able to do this fast at all.” And you go around the circle doing those things over and over again. And so it’s a way of acknowledging what’s difficult, but still broadening the perspective to include what’s good.
And even when things are going rough, it’s like Three Good Things, which was [inaudible] to me by Yvonne Rand. Three Good Things is this great game where something kind of rotten happens, and you acknowledge the feeling, “Oh buddy, I’m sorry, I betcha that’s really disappointing. And can you think of three good things that are happening right now?” Now, we’re not gonna do that game if something really tragic has happened, but if something just kind of lousy has happened, you acknowledge the feeling and then you look around for some good things.
TS: I love it. I’ve been speaking with Susan Kaiser Greenland, she’s the author of the books The Mindful Child and Mindful Games. And with Sounds True Susan’s created a new 30-day audio journey. In approximately 10 minutes a day you and your kids together can play a game, practice, explore a central theme that helps you bring more mindfulness, more love, more gratitude, more generosity into your family life. It’s called Mindful Parent, Mindful Child. Susan, thank you so much for this conversation and for all your good work and good heart. Thank you.
SKG: Thank you.
TS: Thanks for listening to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. At Sounds True, we are dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely accessible. The new Sounds True Foundation exists to remove financial barriers and make sure that people in communities of need have access to transformational tools and teachings. You can find out more at soundstruefoundation.org.
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